One quarter of the US are now implacable skeptics of “climate change” fears

The new Gallup Poll is out. Most commentators are focused on the worried “a great deal” category, which is back to 1989 levels, but that’s largely noise. The important trend is at the other end of the spectrum, and seems to be missed. The only category with steady growth are the hard core skeptics, people who are worried “not at all”. That’s doubled from 12 to 24%; the trend is up. This is an unequivocal category. One quarter of the population are solidly, completely skeptical.

Given the 4% errors, there are only two clear trends in this table below. Firstly, those who had no opinion have now got one, and it’s skeptical. Secondly, the number of the most implacable skeptics has doubled. After 20 years of propaganda the section of the population that is not buying the scare is steadily increasing. The size of the groups with variable levels of worry flicks up and down as people switch. But the numbers of those who worry “not at all” are steadily rising, and therein lies the death of the scare. It’s a one way ticket from being uninformed and worried to the “only a little/not at all” category.

The “enviro-scare” campaign has over-played its hand.

Here are the trends over the last 25 years of propaganda-filled repetition. No major western party or institution or news outlet is an outspoken declared skeptic. Tony Abbott runs one of the most skeptical governments in the west, but even he is promising billions to deal with climate change. The UN, the World Bank, the EU, most science associations and every single government agency says “climate change is real”. But despite that monotony, a quarter of the population are absolute skeptics and it’s growing. That growth comes from word of mouth, books, radio, and blogs. Q14D Gallup 2015.

…

The base of the “greatly worried” group bottoms out in “bad years” (for them) at a quarter of the population too. This is probably the limit of the current implacable believers, the unreachable core. It will be interesting to how much further that number may fall. Twenty years from now it may have shrunk to the 8% – 10% type group who vote Green regularly.

But right now, the skeptical must be focused on sharing messages with the middling fear groups. Half of the population lie between the die-hard skeptics and the die-hard believers, and they can be reached.

The peaks and falls in fear reveal the “switchers”.

The highest points in “peak-fear” mirror the falls in the “only a little worried” category. Those who worry a great deal go up and down. About 7% of the population flick back and forward from being worried a great deal to being worried a fair bit. When “peak fear” occurs, the growth probably comes from the “fair amount” of worry category, but that category itself stays roughly level as people from the “only a little bit scared” category shift up a notch too. But the volatility is decreasing. The peaks of peak-fear did not rise as far in 2013. Notably in the first two rounds of peak fear (1999 and 2006-07), the “fairly worried” category jumped up too, but not in the latest cycle in 2013. Gallup notes that peak fear tends to occur during peak wealth times. It’s a luxury to worry about global warming, and when economic times bite, there is less room for enviro-fear. That doesn’t augur well for the scare campaign. It’s hard to see economic booms coming in the near future. Interest rates are lower than low, and debt is saturated.

Growth in skeptics will have to come from partial believers now

About half of the new implacable skeptics have come from the “no opinion” crowd, though this pool is now exhausted. So further growth in the skeptics will have to come from the “little worried” group. But overall, if we track the worried versus the not-so-worried (top two versus bottom two) the trend is clear enough: skepticism is growing.

If we sceptics had a fraction of the budget of the alarmists those figures would crash toward scepticism because there simply is no evidence to support alarmism. It just shows that if you lie to enough people for long enough, then vast numbers of the population will continue believing something long after there’s not shred of evidence it is true and despite their own personal experience showing otherwise.

I had a person tell me they *knew* tornadoes were getting worse because ‘they lived there.’ (in the tornado belt of the US). When I showed them charts which indicated otherwise they went into screaming fits.

Otter, some people were born to follow. The mistake you made was in trying to convince the wrong person with reasoned arguments. They will change their mind when the crowd around them does. When they hear “nobody believes that stuff anymore” from most people in the room, they will say: “I was always a skeptic”

With “social media” and people wanting to be seen as caring, conscientious and forward-thinking due to enormous peer and media messaging, emotions can run hot.

Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems like the pushbutton crowd* are particularly in a rush to fit in with the I F*cking Love Science people (without understanding much about science). Being challenged on something so close to their carefully crafted self-image can enrage them.

*I’m an old fart draftsman bemused that a six week CAD course graduate can spit out amazing drawings. This used to take years of experience and knowledge; now you can download a file, display it in software of your choice and claim you “created” it. Who’s to know any different?

You were the Guys that expressed the immense detail required to get it right! Current computers easily handle the immense detail required. You guys that did “get it right”, have now been replaced by idiots !

This is why I say the battle over the science is over and now we have to win the idealogical battle. Most beleivers are not evil misanthropists, they simply think that ecological stewardship couldn’t hurt. So, what needs to be done is demonstrate to the “worry a little” demographic that in order to “Hedge their bets” a quarter of a billion people are left to die from lack of care for them. We need to show that the level of ecological stewardship being demanded from them over climate change DOES HURT vulnerable demographics.

It’s illustrated in a recent comment I made on WUWT where I showed how immoral green ideology is. I got an instant rampant demand for proof and moral indignation that showed me I had hit at the core of the belief system. Because the truth about the link between wealth and best practise environmental responsibility is counterintuitìve they just don’t know they are being ammoral/immoral…. yet

Environmental stewardship is right up there in self-actualisation on Maslow’s heirarchy. Inevitably you need a warm place to live and a full belly before it becomes important enough to worry about… struggle street doesn’t care. For those not familiar with Maslow, heres a linkhttp://www.learning-theories.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html

You may be onto something – I notice recently that trhe moral aspect of CAGW is being pushed heavily, this time getting the ignorant church leaders to sway their congregations.

“Moral” implies some form of authority to dictate right and wrong. If left unchecked, it will become “morally right” to execute skeptics in the street without trial or jury.

This I think is their achillies heel – if they have no scienctific correctness, then the basis of what is good or bad ( and the derived morality thereof ) is thrown out. Ergo, they know the science doesnt hold up, so they are trying an emaotional end-run around reason.

This is where we need to fight really hard – link the lack of scientific proof of CAGW to their percieved right ot create the derived moral construct, and the basis of being “morally right” collapses, as it logically should in this case.

The warmista ones they just don’t ken,
The proof they cannot show;
They accept the words of lesser men,
And hold the truth too low.
They promote the myths and push the lies,
And they love their ABC;
Theirs is the pap that’s ignored by the wise,
That’s there for all to see.

If they read the science, they might perceive
The truth is plain and clear;
But they’re badly hooked and they must believe,
What others want to hear.
A religious streak is in their blood,
Belief is what it takes
To change the world, to change mankind
And kill by their mistakes.

And they forget, as they preach and pray
With their contradictory case;
It’s the sceptics who will win the day,
That truth they’ll have to face.
And they forget their honour lost,
Will never be re-found,
As they have to bow and face the cost,
To embarrassment profound.

It is not fair, I was not wrong,
I have just been badly led;
These are the words that will form their song,
When global warming’s dead.
And will not one shed just a tear
For the death and suffering caused?
No, they’ll climb aboard their newest fear
Now that global warming’s paused.

Mike Haseler (Scottish Sceptic),
¯
Yes maybe you could then convince people that closing the coal fired power station at Longannet (1.8GW normal output up to 2.4GW max) next year is a foolish thing. The substitution with windmills I feel, may fall short of the mark when it comes to output.

Longannet is closing not because of the Climate Change scare, but from old age. 46 years since it started power delivery from its first unit, and 43 years of full operation, power delivery dropping now, not because of the CO2 emissions, but from old age.

The plant was originally designed for 30 years of operation, and think about that for a minute. Because it was scheduled for 30 years of operation, then right from day one, the power it generated had to be sold to recover EVERY cost associated with the plant ….. and spread across 30 years. Even so, the electricity it sold was the cheapest power available at the grid.

The plant has been in operation for more than 13 years beyond that total cost recovery (plus profit) so in effect that’s 13 years of clear profit, minus maintenance and the cost of the coal, or if you like, then spreading that cost across all 46 years, it has made the cost per unit even cheaper.

46 years operation.

Wind power can only dream of that.

Even now, 9600GWH per year from a plant restricted to 1800MW, hence a Capacity Factor of only 60%, due in the main to old age now, and still double the CF of any wind plant, but to supply that same 9600GWH will require 3650MW of wind Nameplate, around 1460 Wind towers.

46 year old Longannet supplies it on demand. The wind towers will supply it for an average 7 hours a day.

Closed from old age, not from any scare campaign.

See what stress the Scottish grid comes under now. How easy is it to ring up a 46 year old plant and say, hey we need your power, and lo and behold, there it is, because at a CF of 60%, probably even lower than that now, then it’s probably just used as spinning reserve, called upon when needed, usually when the wind fails.

Like raw temperatures homogenisation must be done to this data before the trends can be relied on. The wordings of the questions has probably changed, rather like moving thermometers. They should always ask the old questions (like having some thermometers that do not move) as well as any new ones, and apply corrections based on step changes in response to new question wording relative to old wording.

It’s interesting there was so much buildup to AR4 and AR5, but FAR, SAR and TAR made almost no difference.
Can anyone figure out what happened between Aug 2003 and May 2004 that converted skepticism into a rising tide of credulity?
Whatever it was it continued until AR4. That rules out Kerry’s election campaign. I didn’t think AR4 hype was so pre-emptive and long-winded.

It’s funny the way fear falls off after AR4 and AR5 were released. It’s like IPCC reports are the Sunday School of climate alarm; concentrated carbophobic confessions chased by carefree carbon consumption. People soon forget about things they can’t control.

The GFC and Y2K should not be conflated. The former caused minor disruptions while the latter caused massive economic shock waves which still have major repercussions today. Y2K was preceded by years of warnings while the GFC was not flagged by most pundits. Very different beasts.

Note that they offer respondents three shades of fear and only one of true skeptic. The trend to 25% each would disappear if there were three shades of skeptic. Start nominating your preferred categories here. ;- )

Hi Jo, It seems to me you are indulging in a bit of post modern, climate scientist approved data fudging here. Someone who is “not worried” cannot be assumed to be a “skeptic”. They may be not worried for all sorts of reasons, from “don’t know, don’t care” right up through to believing the scam but having faith that all will be fixed. You (we) can hope that the numbers are the result of increasing skepticism but that’s not what the data says, at least according to the report, I haven’t read the original.

In any case the not worried group is still a minority and the rate of change is not obviously increasing. The spread is still around 10% and politicians have wet dreams over 10% spreads.

You do good work in exposing lies and spreading the truth but the understanding of the real science is still a long way behind in public opinion and we don’t want to kid ourselves that things are changing rapidly, or rapidly enough.

My real worries are basically your option three and the damage that will do to the poor and disadvantaged and the future of everyone.

The questions are often not an accurate question. As per the question Jo highlights “How much do you personally worry about global warming/climate change”. This has more than one subject that the question is asking about. And the “climate change” part has two meanings.

So any answer from a question like this is not going to inform. The only virtue of this poll is that they are the same questions as asked through time. Therefor one can compare the poll answers from one poll to another, but can insinuate nothing from any specific question/answer.

I can’t remember the term that I used last night, but my intent wasn’t really to suggest that most Americans weren’t too bright, but that perhaps they were more gullible, simply accepting what they are told on this matter. Certainly Australians are not that far removed either, though I believe the scepticism runs to a higher figure.

Again, the MSM is the problem. Even US tech websites just regurgitate the global warming meme without questioning anything, or apparently reading wider than what comes out of their equivalent of the Guardian. I don’t know why, but I expected those into the latest tech to be more on the sceptical side than evangelists.

Also, you have to remember that a lot of those who at other times might not have worried too much about ‘global warming’ have had their fears elevated by the scare campaign being run about the California drought, which, of course, will break during the next El Nino.

The problem with things like the California drought is that long term weather and climate patterns outstrip people’s memories and even their life spans. Alarmists can get away with saying its “unprecedented” and people don’t have long enough memories and/or the correct data to put it into the proper perspective.

What warming? The icy blasts across the US would have done this. It is hard to prattle on about global warming when there is none. It even snowed in Cairo last year.

Worse, there has been no warming at all for 18 years, no great sea level rises drowning Bangladesh and the polar bears and barrier reefs and glaciers and caribou and arctic ice are fine. Besides, who is surprised by a bunch of boffin meteorologists who cannot get the weather right? Even the real Greens, the ones who actually care have realised that without nuclear power, there is no long term power for anyone, that even at this rate of consumption of fossil fuels, we will run out of fossil fuels before we see any of the promised warming.

Today a lot more would be prepared to believe in a coming ice age and perhaps that CO2 is the only hope. You have to wonder what the history books will say about Global Warming, the greatest waste of money in human history. If only a little of that fortune had been spent on Thorium, Fusion, Energy storage, alternative metal fuels, offshore power generation,.. Then you would have to wonder if the Druids regretted building Stonehenge. Sad really, the waste of the longest period of world peace in human history, stolen for political purposes.

People who answer“As I read each one, please tell me if you personally worry about this problem a great deal, a fair amount, only a little, or not at all.” with:“Not at all”:
are described thus:“The only category with steady growth are the hard core skeptics, people who are worried “not at all”. That’s doubled from 12 to 24%; the trend is up. This is an unequivocal category. One quarter of the population are solidly, completely skeptical.”
That, IMHO, is a quantitative leap in qualitative analysis.
So with a simple data mine: and The survey says:“Which of the following statements reflects your view of when the effects of global warming will begin to happen”
Results: All will happen 86% Never will happen 16%
Other mentions:
55% believe warming is due to human activities
62% agree “most scientists believe global warming is occurring” 8% don’t.
A pretty good yarn, spun well, but clearly lacking disinterest. .
Pity “hard core sceptics” don’t exist here: hard core yes, but sceptical no!
William James stated: “If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.” so “Don’t worry be happy” but don’t get caught being miscategorised.

Silly, the survey still suffers from the ambiguity of “climate change”. The term means both natural climate change and in a twisted orwellian way it also means purely “man-made global warming”.

So for some questions even we skeptics can answer both yes and no and be right. I believe the effects of global warming are already being felt. The Thames doesn’t ice over any more does it? Seas have been rising for 200 years… that doesn’t mean I think CO2 has much to do with it.

Jo, I would make the point that climate change has now been confounded with weather. Even someone sceptical of man made warmimg has to be at least a little bit concerned with the governments preparedness or for that matter even the implications for themselves of weather. For example, I would be worried about the weather changing (climate changing) that would deliver up another 2011 flood, because I live on the same creek as Grantham. I’d be nuts not to. If I was Tony, then I’d be concerned with the possibility of another cyclone. There is always plenty of reason to be concerned about the weather.

With the ever present attempts to tie weather disasters to AGW, you’d have to say that a significant portion of respondents are not worried about climate, but are worried about weather and will be answering the wrong question.

The Wikipdia shows for 2014 the State voting split (“Solid”, “Leaning”, “Competitive”) a 52% – 48% split of Democratic vs Republican voters. The Gallup poll shows a position on climate change as THE important issue at 52% Democrat, 13% Republican.

Taking the two points above, at a State voting effective (i.e. the candidates get into office) level, 27.0% Democratic voting States and 6.2% Republican voting states consider climate change as THE important issue. In other words, 33% of effective voters think climate change is THE important issue, while 67% do not.

Although the numbers show solid concern about climate change exist in a sizable minority, the numbers show that democracy as a function of the will of the majority, is not working in the United States vis-a-vis climate change. Which goes to Peter Foster’s point, that what the alarmists are seeking is not changing the opinion of the majority of people but seizing power to implement the eco-green opinions onto the majority of people.

But would 70+% be enough to stop the climate change monster? It’s now thoroughly entrenched in our culture and unfortunately in our economy as well. I no longer delude myself that this will quickly reverse course and stop before a lot more harm is done.

My neighbors are installing solar panels all around me, first here and then there. And that amounts to a lot of pressure on everyone else.

Amazingly, one house just around the corner from me has panels installed correctly on the south facing slope of the roof but… …wait for it… …they are shaded partially or completely for the whole day by large trees in front of the house. This is a chilling example of how much care the pushers of this stuff have for anything but their revenue stream. I don’t have the heart to knock on the front door and tel them how badly they’ve been had. Are they losing 50%, 75% or even more of what they could get from those panels? Maybe someday I’ll stop and feign interest and ask how well those panels are living up to their promise.

And what will eventually happen is what happened with solar water heating. The minute the government started offering tax credits for installing it every one and his brother jumped into the business. Their product was junk and as soon as the subsidy disappeared they all disappeared, leaving no support for anyone. And solar electricity will go the same way.

What I really want to know is who is the owner of those panels, the homeowner or the installing company or their parent company. And more than that, who is actually paying for those panels? I suspect it’s the taxpayers.

Roy,
They have a place. In a remote location out house. Charge the battery, power small fan to rid the stink. Power nighttime LEDs so folk do not fall into! An invention as great as the band-aid! How else do you boil an egg?

The homeowner pays for the panels and is reimbursed a generous subsidy from the RET, normally the process is shortcut by the supplier/installer selling the panels at around cost then having the owner sign over the RET subsidy as the profit.

Various early schemes for the purchase of generated watts saw owners paid about 66cents/kw for a contracted period by suppliers.

Average returns as those initial contracts come to an end to the owner are about 8cents/kw.

The consumer pays through increased cost per kw which rose from 18cents/kw to 28cents/kw since 2010.

The consumer reduced consumption because of the increased cost and to increase turnover the suppliers added a 90cents/day supply fee which has now increased to $1.26/day supply fee over the last 5 years.

*We are now paying out full contracts for unreliable, inefficient and expensive renewable energy which only supplies about 15% of our needs and then paying again for the other 85% to be backed up by reliable, efficient and cost effective traditional coal fired plants.

RET’s and the carbon tax are the most economically and ecologically disaterous policies ever to be foisted upon a population by its own government.

*Acknowledgement to TonyfromOz for the dynamics of the renewables inducstry.

A lot of my neighbors have been here for several decades. I’ve lived in the same house for 46 years. I’m in an ideal location with mild summers compared with nearly any other place in Southern California and over those years I’ve invested quite a bit in useful things like good insulation in both walls and attic along with double pane windows and sliding door and air conditioning. It all adds up to a good place to stay for as long as my health will permit. My mistakes with solar water heating were softened a lot by being able to refinance the house , pulling out a lot of the inflated equity that supply and demand has caused in the area to pay off the solar loans with inflated dollars. So I lost a lot less than I might have otherwise. But I won’t fall for it again.

To Will Janoschka:

Solar has good uses in remote places and these days the railroads are using it for trackside power along any miles of desert right of way for signaling. It’s also used to power roadside emergency telephones. For light duty and where panels can be properly set up, batteries maintained and the whole setup kept working, it’s great, no doubt about it. But it won’t ever run civilization up to the standard required by modern energy based living. And it really bothers me that panels are installed any which way without regard for getting the most out of them. Who out of all the people reading this blog would install panels that are shaded by large trees for nearly the whole day? Where is the benefit? It’s only to the outfit that sold those panels.

To James Bradley:

There appear to be several different arrangements here. The local park district has installed “solar carports” in all it’s major park parking lots which are owned by the installer. The park district is obligated to buy all the power produced at a lower than market rate. To insure that the district could actually buy every last kWh the installations were carefully sized to generate less than the daily demand at each location. I’m doubtful that the revenue to the owner is paying for the installation and possible maintenance needs so I suspect they’re getting a subsidy from guess who — the taxpayers. These details I got directly from a spokesman for the district just for the price of being interested.

One homeowner I’ve talked to does own his panels. But he told me that the option I described for the park district is available to homeowners. My neighbor across the street put in 5 large panels late last year and I’m waiting for them to accumulate a record of performance and then I’ll go over and talk to him about how they’re living up to their promise and what the arrangement is. If you approach someone the right way, act interested and ask the right questions they’re usually willing to talk to you, especially if they’re proud of whatever it is you’re interested in.

In the case of the private installation it’s the utility that’s required by law to buy back every kWh you pump back into the grid. So any benefit to the homeowner comes after the cost of installation is paid off by what the utility buys. It’s the details of that arrangement I want to find out.

I may have mentioned this before but last year I came home one day to find a brochure from a solar outfit hanging from my door. So I contacted them and tried to get basic answers to basic questions like what the financial arrangement was, specs on the panels, etc. — in other words, all the things you want to know before you buy. He was a good propagandist but not a very good salesman. The only thing he’d agree to is meeting me face to face to give me the full line of superlatives. I told him no thanks. The day I’ll sit through all the sales nonsense and not get the technical detail I need to make a decision has long passed.

It would be nice to add the dates of the publication of papers like Cook’s and other 97% solution views as points on that chart. The mirroring is quite striking as are the trends, much as I distrust trends.

They are comparing 2000 with 2015 in the tables. Despite all the millions spent on the scare and having the MSM in the “palm of their hand” the best they can say is a 4% increase with Democrats vs a 16% drop with Republicans. Not a good return on investment !!
The other general point is that all other environmental issue have dramatic drops — Green Parties should take note and those politicians who intend to make outlandish promises in Paris should double check their personal majority that got them into political office.

Extraordinary the difference between Republicans and Democrats on Global Warming! 13% of Republicans and 52% of Democrats.
More, Republican concern has halved from 29% and Democrat concern increased from 48%. So you could argue that 87% of Republican voters were sceptics.

This confirms that regardless of any Science or Scientists, Global Warming is and always was a political issue. You could argue that anyone who cared about the environment voted Green/Democrat, so it would be fascinating to know if the same political bias exists for drinking water, lakes, air, rainforests.

It doesn’t prove that it was a political issue; but rather, people’s social outlook is reflected in the political parties they associate with. It’s a mindset, not coercion.

You associate with the people you are most similar to.

There are two broad categories of people; those who are very social and group oriented, and those who have friends but are not bound by social rules or expectations. I believe the two political parties are reflected in these two mindsets, and the policies of both political parties, reflect these social outlooks.

Greg, yes, people generally associate with parties who principles they follow and whose social outlook they accept, similar people and parties who appeal.

So why does this issue of Global Warming alone separate these voters so dramatically? When before was science decided by social adhesion?

Traditionally the conservative party voters are higher income, better educated, small government, low taxation, lower government spending, less coercion and rule making and also the ones who are in business who stand to make the most money from windmills and solar panels and hot rocks. So why would these people be so against Global Warming when they do not believe it, or are they cynical and making money on the one hand while being utterly sceptical and thus hypocritical by voting conservative?

Or is Global Warming simply a power play, a global scare by Democrats and Labor and the Greens which will sway ignorant voters and win power? If so, it has worked and the Greens have controlled Western democracies since the 1990s.

The indication of this survey is that Global Warming is the major envionmental platform of the Greens and has been pushed so hard that despite growing evidence that it is wrong, US public concerns are actually rising prior to the IPCC meeting in December in Paris, where we in the West and only we are being asked to hand our sovereign rights over to the unelected bureaucrats of the UN. Goodbye democracy.

“So why does this issue of Global Warming alone separate these voters so dramatically?”.

There are probably several contributing factors as to how this particular meme go so much traction, and got such a political (and monetary) momentum.

First; when the idea that the world was warming and it will be catastrophic was first publicised, I for one didn’t take any notice of it. Another proclamation, another study. It’ll blow over and in a couple years’ time I’ll hear about a study that reverses this one. Just like all the health scares over the 30 years previous. I say Conservatives didn’t bother with it because it wasn’t expected to be true before you even look into the claim.

Two; it was associated with the environment which has a natural momentum and general support in the community. This is a political platform that few can counter, so from a political point of view nobody would seriously try to oppose environmental concerns.

Three; environmental groups saw an opportunity to gain some political power, and perhaps gain some authority over industry. For them the opportunity was all gain and no loss. So they did whatever they could and hoped some would stick.

Four; Feel good actions and outcries by moralists. The people who talk about “awareness campaigns”. They don’t know what to do, so they do what they can, they make people aware of the issue and hope somebody takes up the mantle and actually create a solution for it.

Five; and this is getting into dubious territory, a few opportunistic scientists working in East Anglia saw some opportunity for all the above. I don’t know if they truly believed it at that point, Climate gate shows evidence that they all did not. But they were on the rollercoaster, and couldn’t exactly get off at that point. Not with Mann at the steering wheel.

Sorry, the information is all there. The table shows worry on environmental issues has dropped on both sides of politics since 2000 and yes, overall worry levels have dropped from 50% to 20% for Republicans, from 70% to 50% say for Democrats, except for this one issue. So firstly evironmental worries are much higher for Democrat voters. However Global Warming is exclusively and dramatically a Democrat worry and even growing. This makes Global Warming the hottest environmental issue dramatically separating the two sides of politics.

So for the 25% of implacable Global Warming sceptics you could expect that 52:13, they at least 80% and higher vote Republican. These are not ‘swinging’ voters but shows a typical conservative approach of listening to both sides and not to the political views of leaders. Republican voters have made up their minds. Global Warming is not true.

On the other side of politics as Australia, Labor and Greens tell their voters what to think. These are people who look to their leaders for opinions. It makes life easier for some but requires a great deal of faith in politicians, which is never a good idea.

The split is easy to understand, many of the left luvvies of the touchy feely kind are followers with no original thought and no sense of adventure, thus they believe and follow the herd. Confronting them with reality makes them angry as they are isolated from the group think. Sad that Orwell wrote not a sci fi book but an instruction manual for left idiots.

Interesting trends suggesting the possibility of an increasing polarisation toward the two ends of the spectrum with the main gain being made at the expense of the undecided who gradually awaken to the obvious – the 19 year trendless interval in global temperature, the failure of the UN IPCC climate models, the world obviously isn’t ending in climageddon and the paradoxical, burdensome cost of the impoverishing Green charade…but wait there’s more…

the persistence of daily climate harangue, being told you’re a sinner who must repent, a scourge on Gaia…pay here please…or hearing UN demagogues like Christiana Figueres announce:

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution,”

The UN are doing a superb job of convincing the unconvinced that there is no threat, that they shouldn’t pay more to fund a Green elite and that a future UNEP driven eco-totalitarian bureaucracy is something noone wants anytime soon or ever.

My personal belief is that an intelligent person will listen to the scary stories and predictions and be concerned. He will start to waiver when he perceives that the data doesn’t truly appear to support the fear. He will become very much opposed when he sees “silliness proofs” such as all the research that finds “migraines are up due to global warming, diarrhea and constipation are caused by global warming, you are freezing your butt off because of global warming, when the world warms, there will be no more snow or there will be record snow falls,” and the list goes on. The intelligent person, and there are many, go from being concerned, to somewhat concerned to not concerned at all when they constantly see foolishness used to push global warming instead of provable facts.

Hard data wins over intelligent people in time since no one that is trying to support global warming ever does more than “computer modeling,” where as shrieking scare tactics based on modeling will usually capture those that Jo calls “followers.” I find that most of the people that seem prone to be “followers” tend to spend a lot of time in front of their TVs allowing the talking heads there to do all their thinking for them. “What, me waste my time reading and thinking when my favorite anchor can tell me all that I need to know in 5 minutes? That would cut down on my texting time, my facebook time, and the time I devote to tweeting.”

It sort of reminds me of an editorial cartoon I saw back in the ’70s, at the height of the Watergate scandal. Two guys with briefcases are walking away from the reader. One says to the other, “Did you read the White House release of Nixon’s tapes?” The second guy says “No, but I read a review that I agree with.”

No, you are wrong, people on the whole are guided by a sense of right and wrong … an emotional concept, and global warming action has been positioned into that “right” category.

In order to delegitimise it you need to reposition the issue into either a neutral or “wrong” position on that axis. Disputing the science only can reposition the issue to a neutral “don’t care any more” position. To reposition it to make the public aware of the harm it is doing, you need to attack the emotional underpinnings of the issue.

For example, see how easy it has been for the labor party in QLD and NSW to get people to forget about the logic of what’s actually good for them (restructuring the debt) and focus on the emotion swirling around the leasing of a few public assets, taking advantage of an emotional attachment the public has to their property assets. How quickly the public forgot about the crippling debt and attached to the emotive nonsense around asset sales.

I despair at the Australian Public’s increasing propensity to avoid taking it’s heart medicine…. Palpatations are clearly ahead…

“… and global warming action has been positioned into that “right” category. In order to delegitimise it you need to reposition the issue into either a neutral or “wrong” position on that axis.
How about – “Big climate change is a lie. The general weather in winter is still like all the winters we’ve always had. Ditto summer, etc.”

No, that’s logic… They don’t care about truth just about how “believing” makes the “Feel”…

A few illustrations

“Global warming believers don’t care that 25000 grannies died in 2012 in Britain” – By the way, how’s your gran?

“With nearly 7 Billion souls on the planet, totally dependent on the increased crop yields that 400PPM CO2 brings, you want to do WHAT to CO2 levels?”

“Did you know that with the money wasted on the subsidies for your solar panels, four whole African communities could have been provided with clean water?”

“Did you know that with the government money wasted on your solar power subsidies at least 500 African children could have been immunized against Polio, Diptheria, Whooping Cough, Tetanus, Measles, Mumps and Rubella”, not to mention the money YOU wasted on it.

“So you think we should do what the preindustrial communities did for lighting heat and power huh? Perhaps you should invest in the whale oil business then?”

“You know, our government has wasted over 40 BILLION dollars on global warming to absolutely Zero effect but can’t seem to come up with 100 Million for a proton beam cancer treatment facility, How selfish are these global warming greenies?”

“You want renewable power to replace coal? The best renewable candidate because of similar flammability and calorific value is wheat or corn flour, do you really think we should be burning Flour to make electricity?”

This is the type of response required, the truth about the selfishness of the global warming groupies.

Right or wrong are learned response. If you were taught that having sex with a sheep dog was right from the day you were old enough to learn – and you aren’t a sheep dog too – you would believe that was right. If you stop thinking and allow others to do your thinking, you have no concept of right or wrong. It is NOT an ingrained trait.

We do not know that sharing food with a starving person is “right” unless we are taught that. We do not know that sticking a knife in someone is wrong if you have been taught that it is right.

This is why soldiers have so much difficulty now when they leave the service. Their youthful training of right and wrong is “reprogrammed” while they are in the service to serve the military’s purpose, and when the reinforcing training of the military is removed and their initial training of right and wrong starts to resurface, they can’t reconcile who they are with who they were in the military.

If right and wrong were automatic, no one would intentionally shoot at a child, a woman, an old person, nor a man without a weapon in his hand, and that happens too often in war as its fought today.

You are a blank slate when you are born. Everything that you become depends on what you are taught, and that even includes sexual preference. What is “right” to you will depend on what you are taught, not what you are passed by mysticism or spirituality from “pre-birth” experience. Putting it in a blunt way – your God given “right” to be wrong was given you at birth. Only training teaches us compassion and a true sense of “right.”

Not the point I was trying to make though. Yes the attempt to position AGW morality as righteous truth is designed to perpetuate the myth beyond the fall of the science -like astrology, or furtune telling.

I think the emotional arguments against wasting real money on AGW bite. They bite well enough to take the debate.

Like all poll questions, they tend to be somewhat loaded even the sequence. But back to politics and the swinging voter, the aim is to shift them one way or the other as the decided will not change their views very much, or admit they got it wrong. Most people like to be on the winning side.

New figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau showed Florida was home to six of the nation’s 20 fastest-growing metro areas
from July 1, 2013, to July 1, 2014.

“Sure, Florida’s got sunshine, beaches and palm trees.”

“The traffic can be bad, bumper to bumper, especially when the snowbirds are down here, said Paula Roberts, an office manager for
Ronnie’s Plumbing, which services The Villages.”
. . .Florida Time from Seinfield

no need to tell u where this “conversation” (lecture?) led. “game-changer” is such a popular CAGW meme at the moment:

AUDIO: 26 March: ABC Big Ideas: Intellectual cringe
We live in an information rich age, our education levels have increased dramatically over the last few decades, so why hasn’t this led to a similar improvement in the quality of public debate?
Barry Jones considers this paradox and offers his thoughts on how the discourse can be improved.
Highlights of Evidence, opinion, interest: The attack on scientific method at Game Changers – presented by Victoria University and Maribyrnong City Council. March 2nd 2015.http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/intellectual-cringe/6336204

Victoria University: Transcript for Evidence, opinion, interest: the attack on scientific method
Game Changers Conversation #1 – presented by the Hon Dr Barry Jones 2/3/2015
Tackling complex problems will demand complex solutions (e.g. refugees, climate change) which cannot be reduced to parroting a few simple slogans (‘turn back the boats’, ‘stop this toxic tax’.) …
Scientists, especially those involved with climate change, or the environment, have come under unprecedented attack, especially in the media, and the whole concept of scientific method is discounted, even ridiculed…
Brian Schmidt, our Nobel Laureate in astrophysics, wrote in The Age on 16 February:…
“Most of the policy, business and political leaders I meet immediately apologise for their lack of knowledge of science.
“Except when it comes to climate science. Whenever this subject comes up, it never ceases to amaze me how each person I meet suddenly becomes an expert.
“Facts are then bandied to fit an argument for or against climate change, and on all sides, misconceptions abound.
“The confusion is not surprising – climate science is a very broad and complicated subject with experts working on different aspects of it worldwide.
“No single person knows everything about climate change. And for the average punter, it’s hard to keep up with all the latest research and what it means.
“More surprising is the supreme confidence that non-experts (scientists and non-scientists alike) have in their own understanding of the subject.”"…
Scientists are not immune from vanity, and some dissenters on climate change have been encouraged by by certain vested interest groups who tell them: ‘The most important scientific factor in the climate change debate happens to be your area of expertise. Everyone else has it wrong. Only you are right’.
There has been a sustained attack from some quarters, the News Corporation papers, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), to name only three, on scientific research and scientific method, even on rationality and the Enlightenment tradition. The illusion was created that scientists are corrupt, while lobbyists are pure…
Scientists arguing for the mainstream view have been subject to strong attack by denialists who assert that they are quasi-religious zealots who are missionaries for a green religion. In reality, it was the denialist/ confusionist position to rely on faith, the conviction that there were a diversity of complex reasons for climate change but only one could be confidently rejected: the role of human activity…
Robyn Williams of ABC Radio National’s Science Show tells the horror story of addressing an audience of teachers – I should emphasise, not science teachers – some years ago when he asked, ‘How many of you have never eaten food with DNA in it?’ More than half the audience put up its hands.
The debate on climate change, especially anthropogenic global warming (AGW), has been a particularly disturbing illustration of how ill-equipped we seem to be in conducting serious debate and understanding experimental method.
There are three areas of attack against expertise and taking a long term, analytical view of the world – from the Right, the Left and the anxious Centre.
From the Right there have been systematic and well-financed attacks by lobbyists from the fossil fuels industry, and electricity generators. This has been highly personal, often abusive, sometimes threatening.
The anxious Centre includes people working in particular industries and regions (Hunter Valley, La Trobe Valley, Tasmanian forests), understandably fearful of potential job losses, without much prospect of creating new jobs. The trade union movement is deeply divided on this – as is the business community.
But from the Left, or some segments of the intellectual left, a deconstructionist mind-set has partly undermined an evidence-based approach to policy making or problem solving.
The pluralist or deconstructionist or post-modern theory of knowledge is contemptuous of expertise, rejects the idea of hierarchies of knowledge and asserts the democratic mantra that – as with votes in elections – every opinion is of equal value, so that if you insist that the earth is flat, refuse vaccination for children or deny that HIV-AIDS is transmitted by virus, your view should be treated with respect…
Graham Lloyd, The Australian’s environment editor, perhaps more accurately described as the anti-environment editor, trawls the web, finds obscure and unsubstantiated critiques of mainstream science, then publishes them as front page attacks on professional integrity…
Scientists and learned societies have been punching below their weight in matters of public policy, and they are careful to avoid being involved in controversies outside their disciplines, possible threats to grants being among them. Some distinguished scientists are outstanding advocates, including Gus Nossal, Peter Doherty, Ian Chubb, Fiona Stanley, Robert May, Brian Schmidt, Ian Frazer, Mike Archer, Tim Flannery, Dick Denton. Science must be at the core of our national endeavour and you are well placed to examine the evidence, evaluate it, then advocate and persuade…
There is a wide-spread assumption by industry and government that Australia’s economic, social and technological future will be a mirror image of the past. We can be confident that this just won’t happen. We have not even begun to talk seriously about the threats and opportunities of a post-carbon economy…
I encourage you, whatever your political persuasion, or lack of it, to argue for higher recognition of the role that science must play in our future, and drive your MP mad unless or until he/ she does something about it. ..http://www.vu.edu.au/transcript/transcript-for-evidence-opinion-interest-the-attack-on-scientific-method

26 March: SMH: Damien Murphy: NSW state election 2015: Martin Ferguson and John Hewson join the fray
Hewson has sent out messages spruiking on behalf of ***GetUp! for people to join up to a green energy retailer, Powershop, that started in Victoria but is poised to move into NSW.
Hewson said the renewable energy industry had been the victim of a vicious offensive by the Coalition and had been forced to accept a huge cut to the renewable energy target…
“The dirty energy companies might want to protect their huge investments in coal, gas and coal seam gas, but we can – right now – stop them in their tracks,” Hewson said.
“As a former leader of the Liberal Party I’ve seen first-hand the undue influence big corporations can have over politicians and public policy. It’s time to shift the balance away from the big energy companies and their dirty and expensive power habits to Australian consumers who want cheaper and cleaner power.”…http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/nsw-state-election-2015-martin-ferguson-and-john-hewson-join-the-fray-20150326-1m8ih4.html

Hewson of the Asset Owners Disclosure Project now aligned with GetUp? what next?

timely reminder:

Oct 2014: Joannenova: Billionaires club fund Green Blob “Climate Works”
from comment by AndrewWA: This outing of investors is very “Green peace-like” by shaming (sorry, “changing the behaviour”) of the world’s asset owners away from fossil fuels and into low carbon investment. This is being achieved via a sister organisation the Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP)…http://joannenova.com.au/2014/10/billionaires-club-fund-green-blob-climate-works/

Since the Climate Change™ industry adopted ‘extreme weather’ as a marketing strategy, they have placed themselves in the invidious position of seeming to welcome, even relish, climate disasters, the more disastrous the better.
Here in Australia you can see this on the ABC and in Fairfax journals which are important marketing outlets.
I think this could have been counterproductive from the alarmist perspective, particularly in the US.
After all, disaster opportunism is generally frowned upon, for instance in the US looters are sometimes shot-on-sight.

Gallup notes that peak fear tends to occur during peak wealth times. It’s a luxury to worry about global warming, and when economic times bite, there is less room for enviro-fear.

This is a poll of people in the USA, with population of about 310m, or 4% of the global population. Most people in the world would love to have the worries of those bordering lowest quintile of the US population in a downturn.

My “better ‘alf” comes from Brazil. She came from a family who were in the lower half of Brazilians by income in the 60s and 70s. The eldest of 11 children she never had presents for her birthday or Christmas, and only occasionally had meat. “Hard times” were the norm. So ask the average Brazilian, or African, or Asian if they are willing to pay a bit more for their electricity; or pay a bit more for flights for foreign holidays; or choose between gasoline and electric cars. The questions would be incomprehensible, as they would dream of having such choices.
Maybe to poorest 80% in the world are irrelevent, so should not be considered in opinion surveys? Maybe those who consider themselves the intellectual elite – the 0.1% of in the countries representing the richest 20% of the world’s population – should dictate to the rest of the world.
I would beg to differ. There is a world out there far nobler and more refined than anything that the rich country self-proclaimed intellectual elite can offer. This is me bloomin’ Mrs singing (an out of copyright) tune a few years ago. Aquarela Brasileira (Composer Ary Barroso) is as synonymous to outsiders as Waltzing Matilda is to outsiders of Australia. But whereas the latter (especially when sung as after a few cold beers) denigrates the sub-continent, in my utterly biased opinion Elizabeth Campos-Marshall shows the Third World consists of more of footballers and nations craving the crumbs of rich country largesse. It shows that in rest of the world there are real people with something great to offer. This poorest 80% who would love to enjoy the comfortable lifestyles and security of the poor in Australia, the USA, the EU, and the once-Great Britain’s. Please, first listen, then decide whether you are on the side of the poor in the real world, or on the side of the climate science consensus.

Interesting article but so one sided! In this whole CAGW thing (scam). There seem to be no writings intended to inform. The writings, every one, is to convince, never to inform.
This is a failure on each face of the propaganda. Ordinary folk are not nearly as stupid, as claimed by religion,or politics!

A lot of people are brainwashed into believing CO2 causes global warming, it doesn’t.

Warmist propaganda has been highly successful and we have to counter it through the MSM, but its a long time coming. In the meantime we must be patient and accept that at least half the population of the US and Australia believe fervently in AGW.

More than half “believe” in God! This is fine, society needs believers in order to operate! Believing vs “don’t know, is called the entropy of angular momentum. Most all non-earthling critters have no angular momentum, only “Wood ja look at dat”!

26 March: UK Daily Mail: Tamara Cohen: Green taxes on firms double under the
Coalition to £4.6billion: Business groups warn levies could lead to job losses
The burden of green taxes on businesses has doubled under the Coalition
Campaigners have now warned the green taxes could lead to job losses
Critics say the UK-specific taxes could force businesses to move abroad
The Treasury imposed £2.5billion of levies in 2010-11 – but the takings are
predicted to reach £4.6billion in 2015-16, it emerged yesterday.
Business groups have warned the taxes could lead to job losses. There are also fears that more of the costs will be passed on to customers…
Environment campaigners say such taxes on firms’ energy use set an example to other countries and will help tackle climate change – but critics point out that many of them are specific to the UK, which could encourage
businesses that use a lot of energy to move abroad…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3012088/Green-taxes-firms-double-Coalition-4-6billion-Business-groups-warn-levies-lead-job-losses.html

25 March: Aljazeera: Japan uses climate cash to build coal plants in India, Bangladesh
Tokyo argues that the projects are climate-friendly because the plants use technology that burns coal more efficiently
Despite mounting protests, Japan continues to finance the building of coal-fired power plants with money earmarked for fighting climate change, with two new projects underway in India and Bangladesh, The Associated Press
has found.
Japan had counted $1 billion in loans for coal plants in Indonesia as climate finance, angering critics who say such financing should be going to clean energy like solar and wind power.
Japanese officials now say they are also counting $630 million in loans for coal plants in Kudgi, India, and Matarbari, Bangladesh, as climate
finance…
“Japan is of the view that the promotion of high-efficiency coal-fired power plants is one of the realistic, pragmatic and effective approaches to cope with the issue of climate change,” said Takako Ito, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry.
Climate finance is money promised by rich countries in U.N. climate talks to help poor countries limit their carbon emissions…
Yet the U.N. has no rules defining climate finance, meaning governments decide for themselves what projects to include in their accounting…http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/25/Japan-coal-climate.html

25 March: RTCC: Ed King: Insurers told to pull cover from coal companies
Climate risks linked to burning coal should make insurers think again before backing industry, says Jeremy Oppenheim
That is the view of Jeremy Oppenheim, a director at consultants McKinsey and head of the New Climate Economy project, who said this would also protect insurers against future risks posed by climate change.
“It is paradoxical to sell products that enable a set if activities that will cause immense costs,” he told a meeting of the Association of British Insurers on Tuesday…
***According to a new study by Swiss RE, in 2014 recorded natural disasters were the highest on record, with global economic losses rated at US $110 billion…

***Speaking on the sidelines of the ABI event, UK energy and climate chief Ed Davey refused to be drawn on Oppenheim’s idea. But he told RTCC he was in favour of new reporting requirements that would allow investors to see what coal assets companies had on their balance sheets.
“Investors can decide – that firm has a lot of its revenue streams from coal in the 2030s – I don’t believe thatwill be possible so I’ll pull out of that,” he said.
“It sounds small but if you start doing the numbers. a small reallocation of capital out of fossil fuels to clean technology – we are talking trillions.
***It’s game changing,” he added…

No representatives from British insurers RTCC spoke to at the ABI event were willing to say they would stop covering the coal industry now or in the future.
One said it would be immoral to refuse cover for miners who can face intense dangers above and below ground. Another said that where one insurer stopped, another would step in…
Manuel Lewin, head of responsible investment at Zurich said the way in which climate change could impact investments was poorly understood.
“It is a known unknown. We know there is a risk but we don’t know how it will manifest itself over different sectors and a particular timeframe,” he said.
“People don’t know what liability levels they would face in a 3C world.”
Maurice Tulloch, CEO of Aviva, told delegates their business model would be “wiped out” if the planet warmed by 4C, which is the estimated impact of business as usual.
“This is a long term issue but it is coming down the tracks unless we act,” he said. “As investors and insurers we can have transformational potential.” …
Trevor Maynard, head of the exposure management and reinsurance team at Lloyd’s of London, said insurers could help translate climate risks into a concept the general public would grasp.
“4C [of warming] sounds like a warm and pleasant planet – but we would not want that. it would be hellish,” he said…http://www.rtcc.org/2015/03/25/insurers-told-to-pull-cover-from-coal-companies/

Acumen owner’s family has all the usual financial connections. “gender” policy?

26 March: RTCC: Megan Darby: Green Climate Fund names 7 intermediaries to channel cash
National bodies in Senegal and Peru, non-profit investors Acumen and the Pacific’s SPREP approved to disburse funds
At around 0130 in Songdo, South Korea, the Green Climate Fund board approved Pacific island fund SPREP and national entities based in Senegal and Peru.
Social impact investment fund Acumen, the Asian Development Bank, UN Development Programme and German development bank KfW also got accreditation.
Chosen out of 41 applicants, these bodies are responsible for getting donations from governments, so far totaling US$10 billion, to low carbon development and climate adaptation projects in the developing world…
As the scheduled end time of the meeting came and went, other key decisions had yet to be made.
***These included the role of the private sector and adoption of a gender policy to make sure women benefit as much as men from the fund.
***Nor had they agreed on detailed criteria for lending.
A demand by civil society to explicitly exclude coal and other fossil fuel projects is not expected to be considered until a later meeting…
TWEET: Raju Pandit Chhetri: SaudiArabia single handedly tries to squash the interim gender policy being adopted at the #GCFund board meeting.http://www.rtcc.org/2015/03/26/green-climate-fund-names-7-intermediaries-to-channel-cash/

SagePub: Conspiracist Ideation as a Predictor of Climate-Science Rejection
An Alternative Analysis
Ruth M. Dixon and Jonathan A. Jones, Psychological Science, 0956797614566469, first published on March 26, 2015
Reanalysis of the survey data sets of Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (2013) and Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013) indicates that the conclusions of those articles—that conspiracist ideation predicts skepticism regarding the reality of anthropogenic climate change—are not supported by the data. Nonlinear relationships were overlooked in both analyses, and this resulted in model misspecification…http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/26/0956797614566469.full

26 March: Breitbart: Warner Todd Hudson: Congresswoman Claims Climate Change Will Turn Women Into Prostitutes
On Wednesday, California Democrat Barbara Lee proposed a resolution in the House of Representatives that claims women will eventually be forced into prostitution in order to obtain life-sustaining food and water for their families.
Lee introduced House Concurrent Resolution 29, warning that women will be forced into “transactional sex” to get enough food and clean water — all because global warming will create “conflict and instability” in the world…http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/26/congresswoman-claims-climate-change-will-turn-women-into-prostitutes/

The stupidity of that woman leaves me gobsmacked. The worlds most influential democracy and successful economy was not built on the utterings of idiots like Lee. I hope Donald Trump runs, the US needs a hard dose of reality as opposed to cue cards and moralistic pretension. Self serving career politicians like Lee are just vigorous parasites that add nothing to the soul of any country. The term “transactional sex” is interesting in itself. Love to see her asked to define exactly what that is.

“Lee introduced House Concurrent Resolution 29, warning that women will be forced into “transactional sex” to get enough food and clean water — all because global warming will create “conflict and instability” in the world…”

Earthling females have been doing “transactional sex” to get enough food and clean water, from others, since earthlings crawled from the slime.
Just what is your point? Barbra Lee, so ugly, NO,– not even with your ten foot pole!

Well I guess, like in Australia, it’s the facts on the ground that are showing the true situation. With the USA – 2 unusually cold winters, last year’s was particularly cold, this year’s was certainly colder than normal.